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5

THE PARADISE

T he sun was getting higher in the sky now.

The dog curled up on a bed Nick had given her, one they’d also kept around for Panther. After sniffing all around it and inside the sheepskin cushion, she stepped up on it daintily, then turned around a few times before plopping herself down, shoving her nose into a fluffy clump of wool. She closed her eyes with a contented sigh.

Nick watched her fall asleep, and realized he could easily get attached.

He’d always had a particular soft spot for sweet-tempered, polite dogs.

Probably best not to go there until he’d talked to Jem.

He glanced around at the pristine zinc counters with their three-dimensional, blue-green-copper backsplashes above and below blue-painted wooden cabinets. As the sun continued to rise, he felt his worries about Brick begin to dissipate. Brick had obviously gone out of his way to unnerve him; it likely meant nothing, just another stupid game.

Maybe he wouldn’t need to tell Black.

Maybe it wasn’t worth feeding his boss’s fears for no reason.

He ran a hand over the counter as he thought it, and his mind turned to the house, which was still new enough to be a novelty, and not only because he owned it outright. It was the first house he’d ever owned as an adult; as a cop, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he’d likely never own a home in San Francisco, not unless he changed professions.

He still marveled that it was his.

Of course, being a vampire had improved his credit rating quite a lot.

Really, working for Black had done that. Whatever other brain damage that crazy fucker could be accused of, stinginess with his employees in either salary or benefits wasn’t one of them. Black paid well above market rate, even for private security.

Also, Brick supplied him with what he’d called “starter cash,” back when Nick first became a vampire.

The amount had been substantial, more than enough to buy two houses of twice this size, even here, in San Francisco––even right on the water like this. It was a pretty piss-poor way to compensate him for turning him into a vampire against his will, but, knowing Brick, the fact that he’d been given it, “no strings attached,” somehow made them “even.”

The combination of these two windfalls made it an easy decision to do something Nick had only daydreamed about when he’d been human––buy a home on some of the most expensive coastline in the world, and only a short walk over a tall dune to reach the beach where he’d first learned how to surf. He felt more spoiled and more in awe of the reality of his current situation (and slightly guilty about that fact) than he had any right to feel, given what he was.

He couldn’t help but feel he didn’t deserve it, especially after what he’d done when he first became what he was.

That said, he wasn’t greedy.

He hadn’t bought a palace on Baker or China Beach, or in Pacific Heights.

He bought a relatively modest home, just over 1800 square feet, with two main stories plus a small garage below and an even smaller sunroom above the second floor. It had a decent-sized backyard filled with fruit trees and a redwood deck and a small outdoor kitchen and barbecue. The front door stepped out onto the sidewalk beside the Great Highway, only a few blocks south of his favorite coffee shop, a few more to his favorite surf shop, and a few more to Golden Gate Park.

Jem loved it here, which mattered to him more.

Black offered them both a place at the California Street building, of course.

With the “war” over, however, Nick didn’t want that.

Luckily, neither did Jem; the last thing either of them wanted was to be locked into a massive building downtown with no nature, no real space of their own, and zero separation between their personal lives and work. So they’d found this place instead, in the Inner Sunset, and Nick bought it with cash over Jem’s protests. He put both of their names on the deed, over Jem’s even louder protests, and let Jem pick out all of the furniture and fixtures and other decorations, which the seer had been strangely quiet about.

That was fine with Nick, because Jem had great taste.

Nick ignored his ridiculous insistence that he pay him back for any of it.

Fuck it, what was money for, if not to spend it on something they both loved?

And both of them had fallen quickly in love with the quirky blue house with its painted white shutters and its odd little room on top and its eclectic mishmash of beachy and Victorian vibes you could only get away with in San Francisco.

It was slightly less convenient for work, of course, but that didn’t matter to either of them. Jem bought them both motorcycles, maybe in an attempt to make up for part of the house, and they had one car they shared between them.

The house was much more convenient for late-night surfing and for getting some distance from the crazy of Black’s world.

It was also more convenient for late night walks along the beach, going running on the trails of Land’s End, going to pubs and meeting neighbors and having barbecues, and even possibly planting a garden when spring really landed.

Nick smiled as he glanced around at their artfully-placed appliances, mildly amused at what a neat freak Jem turned out to be, especially now that they had their own place. There was an irony in having such a fabulous kitchen now that Nick was completely unable to appreciate the meals he and Jem might cook in it. That said, even though he couldn’t eat like he did before, he still liked to cook, and his sense of smell was even better than his sense of taste.

He especially liked cooking for Jem.

He could eat, too, if he had to, like at the dinner party Jem wanted to throw the coming weekend, now that they were fully moved in. Jem wanted to invite Nick’s family over, in particular, especially Nick’s parents, since they’d hosted them for dinners over the last six or seven months and Jem felt they were overdue.

Nick snorted at the thought.

He knew his mother would absolutely love the house.

She and his father would walk through every room, pretending to admire the architecture while they snooped on his and Jem’s life together. Nick didn’t really mind; his parents adored Jem, and they’d been surprisingly accepting about his sudden desire to live with a man, when he’d only ever dated women before.

Even so, he fully expected his mother to leave brochures in strategic places as she insisted on hinting massively about children and different ways he and Jem could use a surrogate to have a baby of their own, with at least some of their genetic material included. He didn’t know how to break it to his mother that that wasn’t going to work with either Jem’s seer DNA or with Nick’s vampire whatever-the-fuck now ran through his veins instead of DNA.

Adoption was a possibility, but he and Jem were in no way ready for that.

That was a while off for both of them––years, at least.

Right now, Nick was much more invested in convincing Jem to let him keep the dog.

Alaska? Blanche? Tinkerbell? Freia?

What about Winter?

Winter might work for a white dog.

His headset chirped.

Nick exhaled, already knowing who it was, and not only because he could see the ID with the virtual interface. He’d been looking forward to a quiet, non-chaotic morning, with him finding creative ways to cajole his boyfriend into letting him keep the cute, sweet, well-mannered doggie he’d found.

Reluctantly, he touched his ear.

“Tanaka.”

“Where the fuck are you? Where’s Jem?”

Nick grunted. “Mornin’, Quentin. How are you?”

Black blew past that like he didn’t hear it.

“We’ve got a new client. I’ve got stuff I need from both of you fuckers. Why aren’t you here?”

Nick rolled his eyes up to their high ceiling. It was slightly rounded, with pale blue trim, the ceiling itself painted a bone white.

“Because it’s our day off,” Nick grumbled. “Because we don’t come in on our day off. Which is pretty much the definition of a day off––”

“Well, day off’s been revoked. Boss prerogative. Get your ass down here.”

“You can’t just change our schedule, as if––”

“I can, though,” Black said. “I’ll make it up to you. A week off when it’s over. Two, if you’re going to be a fucking baby about it.”

Nick, inexplicably, and annoyingly, fought not to laugh. “What if we have plans?”

“Do you have plans?”

Nick’s jaw clenched. His canines extended just the slightest bit.

“No,” he finally admitted, annoyed. He glanced at the dog. “Not exactly.”

“Then what the hell are we even talking about?” Black growled. “Why are you fucking with me right now, Tanaka?”

Nick bit back what he wanted to say, mostly because he wasn’t in the mood to escalate the argument. He ran his tongue over the sharp end of one fang.

“I have to find Jem.”

“What do you mean, you have to find him? You can’t keep track of your live-in boyfriend? Where the fuck would he even be?”

Nick leaned a hand on the counter, and scowled.

He was tempted to outline to Black all the ways in which it was none of his fucking business where Jem was, given it was their day off, and that if Black didn’t make his tone a little more fucking polite, Nick was going to hang up on him and spend the day playing with his new dog on the beach and buying her a fancy collar and a decent leash and lots of dog toys and treats, and maybe taking her to a vet he knew, and giving her a bath.

In fact, maybe he should bring her to the vet on the way in, ask Francine if she’d mind holding onto her for a few hours after she did a full work-up on the pooch’s health. She might even be persuaded to drop Winter off at the groomer’s next door for a few hours.

It would mean bringing the car in to work, but that wasn’t a big deal.

Anyway, Nick vastly preferred the car with its tinted windows on days he didn’t leave early enough to beat the sun.

“Hello?” Black said. “Did you hang up on me, you fuck?”

Nick considered remaining silent, waiting Black out until the seer either apologized for being a bastard, or exploded in sheer impotent rage. He also considered going full sarcasm and telling him Jem had joined the circus and wouldn’t be back until summer.

In the end, he just growled a little under his breath.

“I don’t sleep,” he reminded Black. “I just got back not that long ago.” He glanced at the dog. “And I actually do have a few things I should take care of before––

“Well, get your ass moving and take care of them, then,” Black cut in, unmoved by Nick’s annoyance, and clearly too impatient to hear his laundry list of to do’s. “Come down here as soon as you can. Don’t wait for your apparently ‘missing’ roommate, either. I’ve got different things for you two, like I said. Really, I don’t even need Jem here. If you do happen to talk to him, tell him to call me. Not come down. Call me. He’ll just be wasting both of our times if he makes a trip down here without talking to me first.”

“Great. Fine. Whatever––”

Black had already hung up on him.

Nick stared at the empty virtual space where Black’s ID had hung, half in disbelief. He terminated the call from his end, and then, grumbling a few more choice words Black wouldn’t hear, he switched off his headset altogether.

What an unbelievable prick.

How Miri hadn’t murdered him by now was one of life’s unending mysteries.

N ick climbed the stairs to the second floor. He walked through the open door into their bedroom, and aimed his feet for the walk-in closet to change his clothes.

He came to a dead stop before he got halfway there.

He stared at the sprawled, obviously naked, and very familiar body on the bed in front of him, briefly surprised into a bewildered form of paralysis.

He’d already decided Jem wasn’t home.

He’d definitely believed Jem to be somewhere other than inside the house.

He’d expected to find their bedroom empty.

After all, if Jem had heard him moving around downstairs, he would’ve come down. He would’ve joined Nick in the kitchen, asked him about his night, probably told him about his own morning while making himself breakfast or a second (or third) cup of coffee.

Jem was a habitually early riser.

He got up before the sun most days, and especially on his days off.

Nick hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t know where Jem was, but he’d had a list of likely probabilities in his head. Coffee shop. Waffle place on Judah. Running in the park, or on one of the Land’s End trails, or even doing burpees on the beach. Jem could’ve gone to the twenty-four hour gym down the street they’d both joined a few weeks after moving in. He also might’ve been out surfing with one of the neighbors, or out at one of the many farmer’s markets around town, or having breakfast with Nick’s sister in the Mission.

They’d discussed possibly going camping this weekend.

They’d discussed planting an apricot tree out back.

They’d discussed maybe driving up the coast to spend a few nights in wine country.

And yes, they’d talked about throwing a dinner party Friday night.

Nick frowned, tilting his head as he stared, but Jem didn’t move.

That was strange, too; Jem was a damned light sleeper, in addition to the rest.

Jem did sleep during the day sometimes, especially now that he was living with Nick. He slept part of the afternoon so he could spend more of his night with Nick, and then slept another four hours from about one a.m. until five in the morning.

Those were the hours Nick generally either went surfing, or walked around the city on his own. Sometimes he’d just hang around the house while Jem slept, catch up on his reading, or even work on the backyard, or the house itself, if he thought he could do it quietly.

Jem was used to his patterns by now.

Nick was used to Jem’s patterns, too.

They were both pretty boringly predictable when it came to their schedules.

Nick changed course and walked over to the bed. He paused only long enough to kick off his shoes, then climbed in with Jem, and wrapped an arm around him from behind. He pressed his chest to the seer’s bare back, the only part of him visible under the white duvet and sheets.

He squeezed the seer against his unyielding vampire body and murmured in his ear.

“Sleepy, sleepy, sleepyhead,” he singsonged softly.

Jem twitched. He jerked slightly when Nick squeezed him, and raised his head. He nearly smacked Nick in the face with his skull in the process, and would have, if it wasn’t for Nick’s highly efficient vampire reflexes.

“Nick.” It came out of Jem’s mouth thickly, but with a hint of alarm. “Nick?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Nick squeezed him again. “Expecting someone else?”

Jem’s body sagged, some of that base, animal alarm leaving his muscles.

“Nope,” he said, sinking his face back to the pillow.

“Why are you still in bed?” Nick asked. “Couldn’t you sleep?”

There was a silence.

Nick stared down at Jem’s face. He was surprised to see the other man’s jaw harden.

“Where were you?” Jem’s voice came out slightly sulky.

Nick blinked. “Where was I?” He frowned. “Same place I go every fucking night when I leave you alone to sleep. Nowhere. I walked down to Market, then to the Castro, and then I decided I hadn’t been to the wharf in ages, so I––”

“What were you doing in the Castro?” Jem grumbled.

Nick frowned openly down at his mate, bewildered.

What the fuck?

“I found us a dog,” he offered. “A stray walked up to me on the wharf and adopted us, so I brought her home. She’s enormous, but has a really sweet, pretty face. She’s white and fluffy and I’m thinking about naming her Winter. Or possibly Blanche.” He paused, waiting for a reaction. “I suppose I have to hang signs first, make sure she doesn’t have an owner before I get too attached, but I thought I’d swing her by Francine’s first and get her checked out. She should be able to tell us how long she’s been living on the street.”

Still no reaction.

He squeezed Jem harder.

“She really is adorable,” he whispered in the seer’s ear. “If she doesn’t have an owner, can I keep her? She’s very dainty and polite. And she’s nice and big and squeezable for a vampire like me. Almost Panther’s size.”

Jem let out a snort, but there wasn’t much humor in it.

“Wanna come down and meet her?” Nick asked.

Jem’s jaw tightened.

“I went looking for you,” he said.

Nick blinked again, frowned.

“Why?” he asked.

It was a genuine question. Why on earth would he do that?

“I didn’t know where you were,” Jem growled. “And you left your headset here.”

Nick fought the part of him that wanted to react, that wanted to match the hostility he heard in Jem’s voice with a little hostility of his own. Why the fuck was everyone yelling at him today? He’d done a good deed and rescued a very cute dog, and it’d been vampire drama and now seer drama all the way down.

And yeah, he’d forgotten his headset, but it was hardly the first time.

“Sorry,” he made himself say. “I just forgot it.”

“Well, you shouldn’t forget it. What if something happened?”

“Like what?” Nick asked.

Again, he was genuinely bewildered.

Jem turned his head, just enough to glare at him.

Nick lifted a hand in apology. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Jem’s mouth opened, then closed. His jaw hardened more.

Nick, now completely thrown, shook the seer gently. “What’s going on, weirdo?” he asked, voice light. “You know I only leave so I don’t get tempted to wake you up. I sleep when I can, and when I can’t, I make myself busy or go out so you can sleep. I usually go surfing, but the waves were shit, so I decided to prowl around like a vampire, instead.”

He used the “prowl” word jokingly, but from the way Jem tensed, he immediately regretted it. He dropped the half-joking tone.

“Did something happen?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, apparently,” Jem muttered.

“Jesus, Jem. What the fuck is going on? Did you have a nightmare?”

“No,” Jem said, his voice only marginally more subdued.

They stretched out next to one another for a few seconds, silent.

From the clench of Jem’s jaw, now pushing out the muscle and bone in his cheek, he had no intention of breaking that silence.

In the end, Nick conceded defeat.

He removed his arm carefully from around the seer, backed up, and climbed up off the bed. He bent down to pick up his shoes, and began backing towards their shared, and ridiculously massive, walk-in closet.

“Black called,” he said, blunt. “He wants me downtown. He wants you to call him for some reason, rather than come in. I guess he’s got a new client, so he’s delegating.”

“Convenient,” Jem muttered.

Nick felt his worry wanting to shift into a harder anger.

He didn’t manage to hold it back entirely that time.

“Convenient for who?” he growled back.

There was another, longer silence.

Exhaling in annoyance––and purely for show, since vampires don’t need to breathe––Nick gave up. He turned around, and walked directly into the closet. He set his shoes in their place on his shoe-rack and began to strip, pulling off everything he’d worn for his five-hour jaunt around the city and stuffing it all in the dirty clothes hamper until he was naked.

His eyes glanced over the clean clothes he had left.

In the end, he just walked out of the closet, still naked, and towards the shower. He didn’t sweat much as a vampire, or smell like a human did, but he still felt grimy from being all over the city and showers felt absolutely fucking amazing with his vampire senses and skin.

He didn’t try to talk to Jem again.

Whatever the seer’s problem was, Nick decided to wait for Jem to come to him.

He hoped that didn’t mean he’d be waiting a long fucking time.